10 Ways You Can Negotiate Better Deals from Suppliers
August 31, 2010 at 9:00 am 3 comments
Does Best Value really just mean getting 3 quotes and picking the cheapest/best?
I’m reading a really interesting book at the moment called Secrets of Power Negotiating and it’s been making me think how useful negotiating skills could be as part of a school’s efforts to get better value for money.
Some of the techniques it talks about aren’t exactly rocket science and many you’ll be aware of before – but put together there are a lot of tools there for squeezing a bit more money out of suppliers. Here’s just a few highlights:
- Get the other side to commit first
- Ask for more than you expect to get
- Flinch (visibly) at proposals
- Never say yes to the first offer
- Play the reluctant buyer, no matter how desparate you are
- Always ask them to do better than that
- Play good cop / bad cop
- Claim to be constrainted by a vague higher authority (say … the board of governors!)
- Revisit areas you couldn’t agree on earlier when you’ve almost made your deal
- If you really can, threaten to walk away
My bet: a day’s training on negotiating skills for you and your senior managers would be repaid many times over.
Entry filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: .
Tom Hesmondhalgh
1.
Geoff Roberts | August 31, 2010 at 5:06 pm
As a negotiating skills trainer I could offer a dissertation onthis, but I will constrain myself to two comments:
1) ‘We’ sometimes feel odd making a very low offer, yet the evidence suggests that the lower my initial offer, the lower the final price. Don’t be afraid to bid low!
2) Beware playing the ‘higher authoroity’ card – as a seller I want to deal with decision makers and if this card comes out then I may well think about whether or not I am dealing with the right players.
2.
Tom Hesmondhalgh | September 1, 2010 at 1:27 pm
Hi Geoff – that’s really interesting.
I remember buying my car a few years back. I made what i thought was a really low offer and the seller just said – yep that’s fine. I remember being pretty disappointed – I abviously could have squeezed quite a bit more out of him if I’d made that opening offer lower. I guess you never really know until you try it!
Do you train schools to negotiate or is it business clients you work with?
3.
Geoff Roberts | September 1, 2010 at 5:29 pm
I tend to work with business clients, but there is no fundamental differences between the sectors, the skills are the skills…and some schools/LEAs I know could really use them!